* Avocado Sandwitch,,a healthy snack

          I'm still  in  my  nostalgic moments of  a  month  of  pampering at  home. I  admit  I'm  spoiled and  lazy now and  watch out  for  every  possible   chance  to skip  my  favorite time  spent  in my  cozy  kitchen. Today's post  is definitely healthy and  a   quick  snack/brunch/breakfast,,, :),Avocado  sandwich, basically  whenever you  are hungry and want a  quick  healthy fix  you  can  go  for  it. Avocado was  pretty  foreign food for  me  until Martha(my  colleague) introduced me  to avocado  over  our  lunch  table. From then I'm just  hooked to avocados. Now I eat at  least  2  avocados  every week. So I have different ways  to eat  although  I  love  to  eat avocados   with a  dash of  salt  on it. So here  comes the recipe  of the  avocado  sandwich.

Ingredients:
1.Small  avocado -1
2. Chopped tomatoes - 1 tsp
3. Chopped onion - 1  tsp
4. Green chilly - 1 (optional)
5. Coriander leaves/ Cilantro - 1 tsp
6. Salt - a pinch
7. Cumin powder- 1/2  tsp
8. Lemon juice- 1 tsp

Procedure:

1.  Cut the   avocado in halves ,take  out the  pit and  scoop  out the  flesh in a bowl.Take  a  fork and  mash the  avocado(if the avocado  is  perfectly  ripen then it will get  mashed easily).

2. Then  Add the  chopped  onion,tomatoes,green  chillies,cilantro ,salt,lemon juice  and  cumin  powder and mix well. The filling is  ready  now.

3. Now  cut the  crust of the bread  out(I  just  take  them out  for  cosmetic  purpose) and  spread the   avocado  mixture  evenly  in a  generously thick  layer in one  slice  and  top  with the  other  slice.

4. Sandwich is ready at this  point  but if you  want  it as  a  finger food in  party then  cut into smaller  cubes,makes a cute  healthy appetizer.

* Stuffed Mushroom

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                       Stuffed Mushroom is  one great finger food to serve for  any cocktail parties. It is tastes awesome and is good if you  have some vegetarian guests around. One evening I just  mixed all the  ingredients  together which I  love such as bell peppers,celery(because of the  health benefits I love to add this wherever I can specially my husband doesn't eat celery as such  so I try to  disguise it as much as possible and strangely he loves them :) ),Mozzarella cheese,garlic...etc and it came out real good.Got a   great review from my extremely choosy  husband.And we love to eat each mushroom in a  bite so I specially love the smaller ones.

Here goes the recipe:

 For this recipe all the  veggies are  finely chopped, so that  you get each veggie in  each bite which makes it very flavourful.

Ingredients:

1. Button mushrooms - 15 nos

2. Celery                    - 1 tb sp(finely chopped )

3. Garlic                     - 1 tb sp(finely chopped)

4. Green Bell Pepper - 2 tb sp (finely chopped)

5. Orange bell pepper - 2 tb sp (finely chopped)

6. Onion                     -4 tb sp (finely chopped )

7. Mozzarella cheese   - 1/2 cup(Shredded)

8. Parmesan cheese     - few pinches

9. Olive oil                  - 1.5 t sp

10. Dry Oregano          -1/2 tsp(optional)

11. Salt                         - to taste

Procedure :

1. Clean and remove the  stem from the mushrooms.Keep the stem for using them in for  stuffing.

2. Chop the stem  finely and keep  all the finely veggies and  preheat the oven.

3. Now  heat the pan and add 1/ t sp  Olive oil and place the de-stemmed mushrooms on the  hot pan for 3- 

    4  minutes.Take them  out  and keep aside.

4. Add the rest 1 t sp  Olive oil to the pan and throw in the onion,then celery's , when these ingredients

  are little cooked(not browned) add the chopped mushroom stalks.When Mushrooms are cooked for

  about  3 minutes,,add garlic and  finally add the bell peppers at the end so that they remain crunchy.

5. Finally add 2 tb sp grated mozzarella cheese and turn off the heat.Give   it a quick  mix and now the 

    stuffing is ready.

6. Take  the Mushrooms and  fill in the Stuffing.(Here if you divide the  stuffing as per your number of 

     mushrooms it will be  easy )

7. Now  these mushrooms go to the pre heated oven for 10 minutes on 350 degree Celsius.After 10 minutes

    take  them out and sprinkle some mozzarella cheese and  Parmesan cheese  on top of each

    mushroom.And then  goes back to oven for  5 more minutes in broil mode.

8. Now the tasty stuffed mushrooms are ready to serve.

The beauty of this dish is the stuffing options are numerous and just go by your  instinct you will find something very new with  every other option.

Thanks for visiting and I would be  more than happy to  hear from you.

* Sweet and sour shrimp

                This Sweet and Sour Shrimp, I got this dish from my dear husband. When  we want some thing to be prepared quickly precisely within 10-15 mins of preparation time ,he always  makes this one .Whether we have some fresh srimp or the pre-cooked one.. it always comes out to be titillating..I'm sure it would titillate your tastebuds aswell.This dish makes an amazing apetizer. This weekend  I took the baton from him and  prepared the dish ,,,ooooo gosh,,,when you eat,an explosion happens in your mouth for sure...so gotta try this one.It is a perfect balance of sweet, sour and hot,,pretty much little bit of every taste amalgamated to tickle your tastebud.....and the best part is it is very easy and quick with very few ingredients..

Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

1. Shrimp  -- 1 lb

2. Turmeric powder -- 1/4 tsp

3. Tamarind pulp -- 1 tb sp

4. Cumin Powder --1 tbsp

5. Sugar --1 tbsp

6. Red chilly powder --1/4 tsp(if you like more hot you can add more)

7. Salt -- as per your taste

8. Oil -- 1 tsp

Preparation:

1. The first step is to clean and devein the shrimps. Best is to use the fresh shrimp than the commonly available cooked shrimps in the superstores.If you don't want to get into cleaning the fresh shrimps the cooked one will also not dissapoint you.

2.After cleaning the shrimp ,marinate them with turmeric and salt and keep it aside while you prepare the tamarind paste.

3. Soak the tamarind pulp in water for 10-15 minutes and then squueze the pulp and take out all the juice.

4. Add cumim powder,red chilly powder,sugar,salt to the tamarind juice and keep the mixture aside.Here do a quick taste of the mixture and adjust the salt,sugar accordingly.

5. Now in a non stick pan add oil,when the oil is hot add the marinated shrimp and cook for a minutes or so .When the shrimp changes colour(don't over cook the shrimp) pour in the tamarind spice mixture and saute for couple more minutes until it gets dry or thick gravy .

Now it is ready to serve and enjoy and yes dont forget to scrap me how it turned out.